Destined for Oblivion: There is no fury like a woman scorned
by fourwindcruiser
Summary: Steven gets involved in a betting pool with co-workers about his girlfriend.


As Steven sat next to her in the Command Centre, Chrissy whispered in his ear as she pointed discreetly at the two guys that were constantly cruising and making innuendoes in front of her. "They are giving me the creeps," whispered Chrissy. "One of them is old enough to be my father and the other one is young enough, but he's chewing tobacco and spitting it in a glass because he can't smoke in the Facility."

"Well, this is as good a time as any, wouldn't you say?" said Steven as he handed her his pad. He kept on calling her honey on purpose as he walked toward the two men who worked on the station a few desks down. "Hello guys, you are the ones that can access the computer, right?" he asked bluntly, knowing that neither could open it and that only one could work on some of the menu, but even then that guy didn't really understand anything. These two were part of the maintenance crew, who were tasked with carrying the food and equipment from the surface. They were spending a lot of their free time in the command center, where they simply pretended to plan with the computers and whiled away the time by chatting with the female staff and by joking around with their male coworkers instead.

"Nah, but we are not the worst for it," said Dean, who was the younger of the two. "Not being independent has its reward here," he added as he let out a boisterous laugh.

"Of course, we are not as lucky as you," said the eldest. Steven could not remember his name, but he knew how the man incessantly bumped into Chrissy and how he had to move her aside to keep her away from him every time.

"If you are talking about my partner," said Steven, "Yeah, she is cute. On that subject, I have been told that you guys have a pool on who would bang her first?"

Both guys looked at him, but they remained silent for a while. Steven bit his tongue and looked them in the eyes. "Who told you that?" said Dean the youngest.

"Nancy Fox, you know that Goth—uh, I mean the _vampire_," said Steven, thinking that Goth had been too demanding for their little brains. "She said a few other girls are on it, but the only one that made people drool was _Kissy_" he laughed.

"_Kissy_. Yeah, dude; that girl is the hottest piece of ass I have ever seen, at least in person. And she's got brains too," said Dean, laughing revealing his taxi yellow teeth.

"Two big motherfucking brains!" said the older guy as he laughed and licked his lips and cupped his hands in front of his chest as he tried to show Steven how big he thought they were. Steven thought, however, that the old man was too fat and had boobs of his own anyway.

Steven could have felt revolted at the way they were talking about his girlfriend, but he did not. He was rather pleased at himself for being so close to her. He set his mind to purpose and continued, "So, how would you know if someone pinned her to a bed?"

"We wouldn't," said Dean. "That's why the pool is for a long kiss with a lot of tongue in public."

_Smart for a bunch for rednecks_, thought Steven. "Okay, what if I want in? How much is the pot? I know it wouldn't be fair for you, since I'm with her all the time, but still…"

"The pot is about 275 bucks now," said Dean. "300 if you participate, but you have to pay now and she has to initiate. In short, she has to kiss you and mean it."

"Of course, so if I understand this correctly, she has to French kiss me, uhm, kiss with her tongue I mean, and the eleven of you will give me the 300 dollars right away?" said Steven.

"Yes, Daniel here has the money," said Dean.

_Ah, that's the fat bastard's name._ "Okay, here is fifty. Tell your friends to add twenty-five more and you give me the full 600 tonight if she grasps my cock with a full open hand… on top of my jeans, of course," said Steven, making sure that he did not look at Chrissy, and handed Daniel the money.

"Like that's going to happen dude, you guys smoke good stuff down there in Canada. But you're on man, you're on," said Dean as he offered his hand, but Steven did not reciprocate. He paid no attention to him and returned to Chrissy, and asked her out for lunch. _Oh, and Canada is north of the US, dipshit,_ Steven thought as he led Chrissy away from them.

"That kid is a fool," said Daniel. "If he somehow gets her to do it, I'll make sure to give him the money in front of her and tell her how well he played her, and then I'll offer her my shoulder and later, my cock to compensate."

"Yeah, Oh Alabama, the devil fools, with the best laid plan," sang Dean, laughing at the thought.

"Oh yeah! Sweet home Alabama!" said Daniel, thinking that the UN had made a good call to have the Facility declared a family-excluded zone. He left his wife at home with the kids for a several months now.

At lunch, a few of the guys had come to Steven and welcomed him to the pool, but Thierry, the French man who was a friend of Eirik, did not only come and congratulate him for his boldness, but told him that he was the one who made them change the pool rules three days ago, because he had already slept with her, but the guys did not believe him.

"Really?" said Steven, unconcerned. "She didn't tell me that and we are working together all day. Did you see her tattoo? She says she has a big one, but I can't make her to tell me."

"I didn't see it. It was dark, you see, and I had other things in mind and in my hands," said Thierry, laughing the stupidest laugh Steven had ever heard. "But that Saturday night, it was a sweet night."

Steven did not say anything and protested that he needed to go and start working. _She was with me all night, espèce de Francais imbécile_.

As Chrissy approached Thierry, he looked at her and smiled. "What did he want?" she asked Steven.

"To tell me that he had already slept with you last Saturday," said Steven. Chrissy almost spilled her glass of freshly replicated orange juice at the reply, as her face turned into a light shade crimson.

"I left the modeling world the minute I got my first real job. Don't get me wrong; the money was great, but because of men like him, the job is a rotten one. You have no idea about the number of assholes that gravitate around models. I slept with three men in my entire life, but if I had to add all the guys that said they did, it would have been hundreds, and I had never even seen most of them or had been in the same country with them even," said Chrissy. "I had believed that here, of all places, it would be different."

"It can't be different; the Facility is a different place for sure, but the humans that are exploring it are the same and, to make it worse, a lot of them are used to power and having everything they want through money or fame," said Steven. He refrained from taking her hand in public, at least until tonight. "There are a lot of groupies in the scientific world too."

"You have a grim view of humanity," said Chrissy, as sadness filled her face, "but an accurate one, I fear."

Seeing that the bet was over, the people left the room. Daniel was happy and enraged at the same time; it was a mixed feeling born of the desire to ruin this little Canadian's party for making him look like a fool and for having to pay him because he had won the sex pool fair and square. He soon arrived at Steven's room, but after pressing the button, nothing happened. It took a minute to scroll down the list of all forty-eight people that had rooms in the Facility before he found Chrissy's; his brain cells took an extra minute to realize that the room was the next one. He pressed the icon on the control panel and waited.

Chrissy finally opened the door after letting the door buzz for at least three times. Daniel was standing in front of the door with an expression of mad joy on his face. He stretched his neck to look inside and then he glanced at her. "Can I help you?" asked Chrissy, thinking that she should feel a little nervous, but knowing that Steven was hiding in the bathroom, listening, made it fun rather than stressful.

"Is Steven here? I have something for him," said Daniel. He paused to observe Chrissy's reaction and saw that she shook her head. "Here then, maybe you can give that to him when you see him." He handed her a loosely opened envelope with a stack of US notes of small denominations.

"Thank you, I think he will be back shortly. I'll make sure he gets it," said Chrissy, taking the envelope and raised her left hand to the control panel to close the door, but Daniel gestured her to wait.

"You are not curious to know how he won that money?" said Daniel. Chrissy could not resist to crack a smile, which Daniel was too happy to take for. In his brain, he was screaming, _please tell me_! "It's the money from the pool he won. You see, some of the guys made a pool to see who would have been the first to kiss you. It was innocent, just a guy thing. Steven took it seriously and manipulated you into having sex with him. I have to say that I feel revolted by it, but the other guys still wanted me to give him the money. That's terrible, isn't it?"

"Well, I didn't have sex with him yet, but when I do, I'm sure it will be anything but terrible," said Chrissy, now smiling fully and exposing her movie star-like white teeth, and pressed the _close_ button on the control panel.

The door reappeared between them and Daniel stayed in front of the door for a long moment, as he rubbed a vein that throbbed heavily on his temple.


End file.
